This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Nearly 500 Utahns have died from pneumonia or influenza this flu season, including four elderly residents of a long-term care facility in Salt Lake County that suffered an outbreak of influenza cases.
Nearly all of those who died statewide were over 65, a population susceptible to suffering the worst complications from either illness, said Lisa Wyman, the influenza coordinator for the Utah Department of Health. The number of deaths is not unusual, she said.
Most of the deaths were due to pneumonia; deaths due solely to flu are less common and the state has not been tracking flu outbreaks in long-term care facilities. But that is changing.
Following tracking experiments by the Utah County and Weber-Morgan health departments last year, the state is deciding whether it wants all health districts to record flu-like illnesses in nursing homes and other residential living centers.
Because such efforts are time consuming, only Utah County is continuing with its tracking this year, Wyman said.
Joy Holbrook, Utah County's epidemiologist, said she calls four facilities each week to see how many staff and residents have a fever and cough or sore throat. "We're trying to see if we can pick up on an early epidemic," she said.
In Salt Lake County, the Woodland Park Rehabilitation Center voluntarily contacted the Salt Lake Valley Health Department after several staff and residents became ill with flu-like symptoms.
The health department didn't identify the facility, but Woodland Park sent out a news release about the outbreak.
In all, 35 residents, or 23 percent, and 22 staff, 14 percent, were sick, said Dagmar Vitek, the health department's medical director. Pam Davenport, department spokeswoman, said four of the six deaths were attributed to influenza, one was attributed to something else and the sixth was unclear.
Vitek said the facility poses no threat to public health, and the center has not seen any new flu cases since Feb. 15. It imposed a quarantine, and visitors were turned away. Staff and residents wore masks, and residents ate meals in their rooms.
"The facility did everything they possibly could," Vitek said.
Some 40 percent of the sick had received a vaccine shot, Vitek said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said this season's flu vaccines don't protect against more than half of the current viruses.
But Rachelle Boulton, a Utah Department of Health epidemiologist tracking the flu, said Utah's flu strain isn't more severe than in the past. "It's just that these people [in the nursing home] are a lot sicker initially," she said.
Health departments in other states, including Colorado, California and New Mexico, track flu cases in long-term care facilities, and have found such outbreaks are not uncommon, Wyman said.
"These outbreaks hit hard, they hit fast. You do expect fatalities, unfortunately," she said.
Flu facts
* As of Feb. 6, there had been 97 flu hospitalizations in Utah, fewer than last year during the same time period, and no flu-related pediatric deaths.
* Long-term care centers in Utah must report their influenza vaccination rates. In 2006, the 262 centers statewide were caring for 14,235 residents. They said they had vaccinated:
* 72 percent of residents.
* 48.2 percent of staff.